Meet the anti-Elizabeth Warren

Rep. Shelley Moore Capito’s friends and colleagues in Washington are so certain she’s headed for a promotion this year, they’re already addressing her as “senator.”

Capito looks poised for a swift victory in the West Virginia Senate race this fall, thanks in no small part to overwhelming support from the business and banking sectors. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent $200,000 on ads supporting Capito. From her position on the House Financial Services Committee, the seventh-term congresswoman has vacuumed up money from the banking industry. She even received a check from Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat.

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Now, Democrats are hoping to cast Capito’s close ties to the industry as a political weak spot by portraying the congresswoman as a tool of Wall Street. On Monday, they amped up this strategy by bringing the populist Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren to West Virginia to campaign for Democratic Senate nominee Natalie Tennant.

Indeed, as Capito marches toward retiring Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s Senate seat just months out from the November election, she is looking increasingly like the anti-Warren candidate.

While Warren made a name for herself as an outsider bashing big banks, Capito has long been comfortable operating at the crossroads of Washington and Wall Street. Her father is a former congressman and West Virginia governor and she is married to a veteran bank executive. Since her election to the House in 2000, Capito has been a dependable friend to business and banking interests in Washington.

The financial industry, in particular, considers Capito a go-to person for its concerns about the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulation law. And it’s more than returned the favor this cycle. Individuals and PACs associated with the finance, insurance and real estate sectors have donated more than $750,000 to Capito so far in support of her Senate bid, with Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs ranking among the top contributors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Industry leaders in both West Virginia and D.C. say they’re counting on Capito to be an ally in the upcoming Congress – next year, as a member of the Senate.

“People are already thinking about what role Congresswoman Capito might have when she goes to the Senate and people are already thinking about what her role might be in terms of helping the financial service industry on the assumption that she goes to the Senate,” said Steve Roberts, president of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce. “I was with bankers the other day who were really praising her for her legislative service.”

Democrats, who recognize Capito has a solid advantage in the race, are hoping voters balk at Capito’s Wall Street ties. Using Warren as a surrogate for this message comes with some political risks — Democrats are gambling that Warren’s anti-Wall Street message will resonate with West Virginia voters and that her liberal policy positions, such as on coal, won’t be be a distraction.

Tennant, West Virginia’s secretary of state and a former TV journalist, has derided Capito for putting “Wall Street millionaires” ahead of regular West Virginians. She has labeled Capito as a champion of out-of-state companies and accused her of being in the deep pocket of the big banks.

She has even directed some fiery attacks toward Capito’s family, going after the congresswoman’s husband, Charles Capito, who for decades worked at Smith Barney — the brokerage firm is now a part of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. In a news release, the Tennant campaign said her appearance with Warren on Monday in Shepherdstown would contrast Tennant’s “West Virginia first” message with Capito’s “record working for Wall Street banks where her husband works.”

“This is about West Virginia and this is not about Wall Street and she has chosen which side she wants to be on,” Tennant said in an interview with POLITICO earlier this year. “I am clearly West Virginia and she is clearly Wall Street, because she has voted to allow these bank executives to get bonuses while taxpayers are bailing them out.”

At Monday’s campaign event, Warren accused Capito of carrying water for Wall Street in Congress.

“I also have seen Congresswoman Capito in action on the House Financial Services Committee, and time and again I have watched her side with powerful financial interests over working people,” Warren said.

If this kind of rhetoric gets under Capito’s skin, she isn’t showing it.